The Beach Plum – North Hampton, New Hampshire

This is the third time I’ve been to this spot, but I didn’t get around to writing about the last time so I’ll fold that in too. I kind of love this place. It doesn’t serve the best lobster roll, it does serve the biggest, and it is really quite good despite the fact that they use a mix if fresh and frozen claw meat. Found out that factoid thanks to Ken’s cousin, Zach, who lives in Portsmouth and is easily the most valuable lobster gal team member I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating lobster rolls with. He asks all the questions, ones I didn’t even think of, and even finds out who is the right person to talk to about these things. He even found out that the get the lobster meat from Ipswich, MA. We have only ever had lobster rolls with him at Beach Plum, but I really could learn a lot if I could get him to join the lobster roll quest more often. He even got me a behind the scenes tour of the kitchen where they showed me how they actually weigh out each lobster roll. 10 oz isn’t just a guestimate here. The Portsmouth location, where Zach and the fam joined us is open year round and really has more of a super crowded McDonalds vibe to it. You get your food, then be prepared to fight to the death to get a table or work out a deal with a table that looks almost finished as we ended up doing after I got cut off at the pass three times by stroller weilding moms. I like the vibe at the North Hampton location much better. It’s a takeout window and I guess the table fighting is roughly the same, but here you can take your food across the street and sit at the lovely beach. I really do like this lobster roll. The standard bun is very buttery grilled and filled like a mountain with cool, lightly mayoed fresh and frozen mix of claw and knuckle meat. I know, as with anything, there must be different levels of quality with frozen lobster meat. Or, maybe they do something special to it, but it is quite good and full of flavor in a way that most bland, watery frozen meat doesn’t. Not so with the hot lobster roll they serve at the Portland location in the winter. I was picturing a hot, buttery version of their cold lobster roll, not so. The hot version is just whole claws, clearly frozen, spongies and all, plopped on the bun. It’s just not very good, skip this one until they start taking the exact same meat in the cold version, warm it up, not sautee or cook it, then toss it with melted butter somewhat cooled so that it sticks to the meat and doesn’t just soak into the bun. Sorry, just had to share that fantasy, it could be so great. Or a version with their lobster bisque could be fantastic too. You should order the lobster biquue, very good and seems to have an amount of meat comparable to their lobster rolls. Ok, enough sharing how people should run their obviously successful business. The have a great product, the cold lobster roll, don’t miss it. Worth noting, their ice cream is also worth saving plenty of room for. They have tons of creative flavors, huge servings, as is their trademark, very tasty stuff. Ideally, I love their pumpkin ice cream with butterscotch topping but, it is seasonal and the banana and the blueberry are also winners. Yes, I love me some fruit flavored ice cream to top off my lobster rolls.

P.S. – For some strange reason, Ken decided to order the foot long lobster roll, which is really two regular sized rolls, which he didn’t finish, obviously. So, we wrapped it up, put it and the cooler to take home. I must say, the lobster roll was also very delish the next day. Of course, the bread wasn’t crisp like the day before, but not dried out or anything, still very good. So, order the foot long and take one home. Nothing beats having another lobster roll at home the day after a trip.

These photos are from the North Hampton location in May 2012. Lobster roll weighed in at 10.9 oz. Photos from the Portsmouth location in separate post.